Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Precious Competencies by Lynda Gratton - Drucker Society Europe Blog

Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and is the founder of the Hot Spots Movement.
She has written seven books and numerous academic articles and is
considered one of the world’s authorities on people in organizations.

In 2011 she has been ranked by The Times as one of the top 15 Business Thinkers in the world today and in 2008 The Financial Times selected
her as the business thinker most likely to make a real difference over
the next decade. She was also in the top two of the Human Resources Magazine’s “HR Top 100: Most Influential” poll, and this year Lynda was number one of Human Resources Magazine’s “Top 25 HR Most Influential UK Thinkers 2011” poll.

We may be happy to eat the food that multinationals make, and fly in
their aircraft, and even take the pills they have invented. But many of
us say we don’t trust corporations, and we don’t trust the people who
lead them. Some are even willing to go out onto the streets to make this
clear. It seems to me that now is the time for corporations and their
leaders to be more explicit and transparent about their purpose and
goals.

To do this, corporations have to address three questions: how is
leadership ensuring there is sufficient inner resilience to take the
corporation through these turbulent times? What is the corporation doing
to positively anchor itself in its neighborhood and supply chains? And
what role is it playing in solving global challenges such as climate
change, endemic youth unemployment, and inequality?

Some leaders are already stepping up. When Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman
committed to significantly reducing the environmental footprint of his
corporation, he was making a purposeful statement about climate change.
When Danone’s CEO Franck Riboud committed over seventy million euros to
the Danone.Communities project (www.danonecommunities.com), he was making a purposeful statement
about the role of the corporation in society. When the CEOs of Indian IT
giants Infosys, TCS and Wipro built a host of ways to educate Indian
children, they were making a statement about their role in India.